Casey, Spy Knight
by Sir Casey of the Lea
Summary: Nightmare takes over Earth,and one human somehow manages to join the Galaxy Army to fight back. Based on Hoshii no Kaabii.Some romance, but mostly adventure story.BEWARE!There is some cursing!
1. Chapter 1

This is my first one, so pls don't be too harsh. Kirby will show up soon.

Chapter the First

Math homework. Ugh. "Lee, what answer did you get for q 27?" "3.15" "How did I get 48?!" "You're using Mr. Rigmond's method. You have to carry the 2 and then divide by three." "Stupid Cardassian of a math teacher." I replied. We hated the math teacher here. It was Rigmond's second year teaching, and he was still irritating. "Oop, my dad's here, see ya tomorrow." Another afternoon alone doing homework until Aunt Mary remembered to pick me up.

7:00 o'clock. I look at the window and see that my aunt's skuzzy boyfriend's come to pick me up. I hope he's not high like he usually is. He was. Not very, so I wouldn't have to drive. "I don't see why I have to come pick you up, "said Skuzzball. "Your aunt isn't as stoned as I am" Yeah right, thought I. We soon reached the rundown apartment that my aunt crashed in. As I rush up the stairs to avoid the drug smoke, my aunt asked if I was sure that I didn't want to try this "good stuff". Apparently, it gives you crazy hallucinations, sometimes nightmares. I don't need that, my memories are bad enough.

MooOOOOooomoooOOOooo! goes my alarm clock. Groan. Another morning. Thunk, thunk, down the stairs we go and then we get to the tunnel…. Smiling inwardly at the reference, I got myself some breakfast, and then shook my aunt out of a drunken stupor to drive me to school. History class early in the morning, with an English class following, not much fun in either. I thought back to my 9th grade English class, reading Beowulf. I remember being mad that he died for no good, that the gold that he had worked for was cursed. I had laughed at the time at the thought that he'd broken all of his swords because he hit too hard. I was determined to find out if he had to be superhuman to do that, and took fencing. I now found solace in the clang of foils.

RIIIIIIIIIIING! Second period was over, first break had begun. This meant homework time for Lee and I, plopped down on an old couch surrounded by portraits of headmasters past. Biology was to be our treat today, all about RNA, like it has been for a week. Not hard, but time-consuming. She finished her homework before I did, as usual. She went off to listen to music while I let my mind wander. Lee's always been a good friend to me, always dealing with my occasional craziness. She'd even kept in contact with me when I was bouncing from foster home to foster home all over the country.

"Casey, Casey, come look. The teachers have the TV on." Lee motions for me to come near the door to west class room, which is packed full of teachers and older students. "What's going on?" I say. "Looks like a special broadcast to me. " Lee shrugs. I doubt she has any more idea what's going on that I do.

"We interrupt this program to bring you this special broadcast. The NASA has discovered that a large object is on a direct course with earth. We switch over to John, our correspondent at the base." All the first year foreign students all twitter with each other in the corner trying to figure out what the newsman said. Meanwhile, Marge faints. I shook my head at the poor seventh grader. It wasn't surprising, really, that girl's mother made her wear a corset. Iz sidled up to me and worriedly asked me if I'd heard anything about this. "Why would I?" "Well you're the one with the uncle in NASA…" "Iz, what have you been smoking? Nobody here has an uncle in NASA." She was about to reply when John finally came on screen. "Well Peter, everything has pretty much succumbed to pandemonium around here, or so it seems as the scientists try to figure out what the heck is heading towards us. Wait, something seems to happening. Sir, what's going on?" The man didn't even look up from the computer station, but said to the whitecoat next to him "A piece of the incoming object has broken off and is heading straight for one the parks, and its picking up speed! It'll hit any moment! BAAM!!!" We watched the lab shake as the "something" hit near. Marge fainted again, this time into the arms of a teacher. Iz cringed as the camera switched to a helicopter hovering over the impact site. The picture was terrible; it looked like a truck full of bombs had gone off. Which it kinda did, as it turned out it was a missile. The camera was zooming in on some of the destruction when the scientists popped up again, "The meteorite appeared to be a missile, and there are more coming. Please, stay indoors; get in the basement if you can. All military, medical, and response teams are to report to their commanders."

Everyone started screaming, no one could hear the teachers try to calm everyone down. I looked to my left at Iz; she looked nearly as pale as Marge did. I turned to Lee and said, "Lee, do that thing you do so loud, otherwise we'll be bombed where we stand." She nodded, put her fingers in her mouth and-SHREEEEEEE!! The adults finally could make themselves heard and quickly herded us down to the basement. Not all of us could fit, so some of the teachers stood in the stairwells to make room. We all watched nervously as one of the adults turned on the TV, and the news showed the missiles hitting places all over the country. Lee squeezed my hand as Chicago got hit, her father was there giving a talk. It felt like a dream to me, as if I was stuck in a scene from a disaster flick. The president quickly came on; jabbering on about how the country had to come together as we were under attack and how the military was doing everything it could to protect us. I remembered an old riddle about aliens, how if they came to visit us that they would have more technology than us. That means they have better weapons than us, thought I. We're doomed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter the Second

A bunch of the kids started screaming as the bombs hit nearby. The ground shook and my ears started ringing as the booms reached us. A bunch of the teachers sheltered each other in their arms as the walls trembled. As the explosions began to quiet down, some of the kids got calls from their parents, asking if they were ok. They were lucky to have someone to worry about them. The image on the TV screen went to showing the damage to rippling snow. An ugly face came on the screen, "Greetings, inhabitants of earth. This planet belongs to us now. Any resistance will be crushed by brute force, without mercy. You will continue to exist, but as workers for the Holy Nightmare Corporation. All previous governments are to be dissolved, as are any schools, hospitals, or institutions of any kind. You will comply." Screaming. Everyone turned to the teachers, asking what to do. Not even they knew, but before anyone could make a suggestion, a large whoosh was heard overhead. A resounding chorus of "What was that?" was heard, and nearly everyone headed up the stairs to see what it was. I stayed behind; I've seen too many disaster movies to fall for that trap. But Iz grabbed my hand and pulled me outside; despite my protests, but once we looked at the sky, my voice was stopped.

The sky was full of ships. Great big dark purple spaceships floated above our heads, as if whales had fallen into a bucket of paint and learned to fly. There must have been hundreds of them, all coming to colonize our world like we had done to different countries on our own planet.

Several hours passed as we huddled in the school, frozen with shock. All we heard were the firing of guns and explosions. A bunch of the parents were in the army, so we had some idea of what was going on. The military was fighting back, but without much luck. Their army had too many weapons and too many… they couldn't even be described as soldiers, they were monsters. Most of them were five or ten times our size, and as soon as one would go down, 2 would appear out of the belly of a shuttle.

I leaned up against the doorway to the main building, watching the explosions as the army tried in vain to beat back the invaders. Who knew what was going on in other parts of the world right now? "Casey?" Iz was standing behind me, nervously twirling her thumbs. "What do you think is going to happen to us?" How was I supposed to know? But I did have my suspicions. As I was trying to think of how to respond, Lee came up behind Iz. I eventually said, "I don't really know what's going to happen. Hopefully we'll be able to beat them back." Iz went off to see if she could contact her parents, reassured by my words. "You were lying, weren't you." Lee said. She knew me too well. "Yes, I was lying, but what choice did I have. Isabella is scared, and she deserves to have some hope." "What about you?"

"I have not the slightest hope."

I had retreated into one of the more secluded rooms to think. My head was still trying to grasp the concept of the invasion. It all seemed so unreal, so I turned to my pocket for comfort. For some reason, that morning I had slipped my little copy of the Braille Robin Hood into my jeans. I quickly allowed myself to be sucked into the world of Sherwood Forest, far from the noise of bombshells. I snapped the book shut as Lee entered the room with a frustrated, worried look on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked, "Other than the obvious." "Do you remember the alien announcer, from right before the ships were in sight?" "How could I forget." I replied.

"He spoke perfect English.

So?

Don't you think that's a bit odd?

I hadn't really thought about it…

Well English isn't an easy language to learn. The only way anybody alien could have learned it was if they kidnapped someone, were already here, or they were watching us for a long time.

All of which require them to come really close.

So the question is-

How did they get so close without anyone knowing? Why didn't we know they were here before they opened fire?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter the Third

Several months had passed since the arrival of Nightmare and his demonbeasts. Not that Nightmare was actually here; this was just a "breeding colony". I nearly laughed it was so absurd. Humans, probably the fastest breeders in the galaxy, forced to breed their captors. Not that it was a particularly good joke; nothing really had been funny since they came. Most of us worked raising the beasts or doing menial jobs on the bases around the world. Like me, I fetched supplies for the various departments. Right now, I was pushing gene experimentation equipment on a cart towards one of the countless labs here. I turned my mind back to that awful day…

SHREEEIIIIK!!!! Lee and I had just barely finished our musing when we heard the telltale scream of a seventh grader. We rushed out of the room, into a scene where a couple of great big beast-things were trying to keep a hold of some of the underclassmen. We rushed at them, "Leave them alone!" we cried. "We are your masters now." One of them said. "You will comply. Get into the truck." Ca-click. The other beast cocked his gun. "Now." I was trying to figure out which one to attack first when Mr. Rigmond began to herd us all outside. I could see that Lee wanted to protest, but I quickly shushed her. "The meek shall inherit the earth, remember? I think it better to act all sullen and downtrodden now and escape later." She nodded her head in agreement, and we all trudged outside. The "truck" turned out to be a shiny chrome-like vessel that we were forced into, though I suppose it did the same thing, transporting us. While traveling, we found that they'd already set up some buildings, part of a great big metal complex that was probably as big as downtown. I didn't like it. Not just because it was scary (which it was), but because I couldn't think of what it might be for. When we finally got out of the truck, the guards began interrogating us on our skill level. All the kids were quickly thrust aside, but the teachers were questioned more thoroughly. After many hours, we were ordered to return to our homes, that tomorrow we would begin work for our new lords…

I shook my head as I turned into the lab. No use going over it in my head, but I kept wondering. If I had done something different, would things have turned out the same?...

"Do you think we should show up tomorrow? I mean, we were ordered to, but should we?" Lee and I debated as we walked towards her house. I wouldn't be able to get to my house in time, so I was going to stay at hers. "I think we should." "You're going to give up that easy?!" shouted Lee incredulously. "Well we haven't got much choice, have we?" "You don't actually believe they'd send the soldiers out for us, do you?" "Why not, that's what they're here for." She agreed to come with me the next morning, but she was still iffy about the possible consequences of staying home until we saw a classmate of ours hauled to their job by their ankles.

I smiled at Lee as we passed each other. Because of her tendency to trip over stuff, she wasn't allowed to handle the big equipment, so they'd put her on the maintenance crew of those who tended the cloning machines that made the baby demons. Another day of working, worrying and dealing with the memories was almost over.

* * *

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! Do you guys think I should change to the present tense or not?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter the Fourth

"Hey Lee, our shift's over!" The night crew was going to come on soon; this corporation never seemed to sleep. We walked to one of the hallways that would lead to the exit, but found our way blocked. We were standing next to one of the training rooms, and two of the beasts had crashed through the wall. Lee froze as she saw the two enormous monsters grappling with each other. "Come on!" I grabbed Lee's hand and ran before we could get crushed.

"There's an exit this way." We slowed down after a bit, and burst out laughing at the absurdity. "If someone had told 3 months ago that I'd be dodging giant monsters, I'd've said they were stark raving bonkers." We laughed.

"Hey Casey?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we?" Come to think of it, I didn't know.

"Ummm…" Just then, I thought I saw a familiar person walk by.

"Cyth?!"

"Casey!"

"Hah! Fancy seeing you here."

Lee: "Umm, Casey, who is this?"

"Lee, this is Cynthia, my best friend from elementary school. Do you know the way out?" I asked my old friend.

She flipped her hair and said, "Sure, it's this way." She had grown since I'd last seen her, though from her incessant chatting and asking questions it was apparent she still loved to be a social butterfly. She'd always been better at that than I was.

"Where were you when the bombs fell?" She asked, "The dog and I were in the park when they hit. My family's ok, and we're still living in our old house."

"Mine too," said Lee, "What are you doing here?"

"Working for Nightmare, like everybody else, as a messenger." We chatted amiably as we walked down the hallway, reliving old adventures and laughing at silly inside jokes. We walked quickly down the hall ways, looking for an exit. We eventually got out and headed to the shuttles that transported us from the base to our homes.

"Hey, do you guys wanna hang out at one of the old abandoned buildings? I don't really want to talk out in the open, you never know where they'll put cameras." said Cynthia. We agreed, looking up nervously at the camera above our heads. We ended up in an abandoned theatre, one that had closed down just before they came. It was one of those old ones, with the red velvet seats and the stage. We came in through the back and wandered about backstage before Lee and Cynthia walked out on stage. I leaned up against the wall of one of the wings and gazed out into the empty audience.

"I wonder if kids did this when the Europeans went on a colonizing rampage in the 1800's." mused Lee. "We certainly put up less of a fight."

"Yeah, and we don't have anyone to pit them against." Referring to an old story Lee and used to read. A light went off in my head. "But what if we did…"

"What?" asked Lee.

"Think about it, these guys were too good for this to be their first time capturing a planet. They've done this before. There are probably people fighting back."

"Casey, what are you talking about? Why would people be fighting back when the entirety of the human race isn't?" exclaimed Cynthia.

"We're all still in shock. And we don't know that other people aren't fighting back, we haven't heard anything outside of the city since the invasion. Who knows what's going on the other side of the world?"

"Yeah, but how would we fight back?" said Lena.

"We can't. Unless we have help." I replied, semi-despondently.

"You're right though. There are probably are others fighting back, but they'll need all the help they can get." Cynthia was smiling as she said this. She had thought of something I'd missed as my mind jumped hurriedly from one thought to another. "We're on the inside…"

"I get your idea. We could spy on their movements from where we are. Even if we can't fight back ourselves, we can use what we hear to help whatever resistance is out there." I smiled; Lee always was the brains of our group.

"Hold it guys. We've missed something. How are we going to collect information if we don't even understand their language?" Cynthia was right. Most of the commanding officers only spoke in the Interplanetary Dialect, and hardly spoke enough English to order us around. They weren't going to say anything of importance in our language.

"Doesn't Isabella's older brother speak it?" said Lee

"You all are crazy!" We had gotten to Iz's house and were trying to explain to her our idea, but with little luck.

"You don't have to help us." said Cynthia. "We just need to see Jason."

"Well of course I'm going to help, but you're still crazy. He's upstairs."

We all (Iz included) ran up the stairs to see her brother. Lee quickly explained the situation and asked him if he could teach us the language of the invaders. He said he could, and asked if he could help us spy on them. It didn't take us long to pick up the language, considering our experience with Greek and the like. Not to mention it was very easy. Only a few weeks passed before we started to get good enough to speak, if brokenly, in the language. Cyth asked Jason how he managed to learn it.

"Well," he said, "You know my degree is in language analysis, so I was chosen to be a translator until more of the commanders learned English. All of them are still having serious trouble with it, but you guys are doing great."

"Do you think we should try our plan?" asked Iz nervously.

I nodded and smirked as I said "Let's do this."


	5. Chapter 5

AIGH! This chapter was so hard to write! I'm still not pleased with it, but I can't think of a way to make it better. THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS! They make me happy, which I can't type without. HERE WE GO!

* * *

Chapter the Fifth

We had waited until our shift the next day to try spying on some of the low level monsters. I felt very mischievous. Iz was so nervous she was hyperventilating but I was nearly whistling. We checked in for our various jobs and parted. One of the scientists immediately ordered me to get a piece of equipment from one of the closets, and I walked extra quickly, looking for a keyhole to listen at. I had just reached the cupboard when a couple of officers walked up and began to speak under an overhang. I leaned into the opening pretending to reach for something.

Officer 1; "Kraclon still won't listen to you? He always did have a small brain. Comes from having it in your legs, I suppose.

Officer 2; "I've told him again and again that there's no use trying to water proof the Wolfwraths. They just burn off whatever you use.

Officer 1; "You have to admit though; they are a work of genius."

I smiled as I withdrew from the closet and walked toward the lab. I'd understood every word they'd said.

* * *

"Told ya it would work." Cynthia was beaming. She'd gotten lucky and heard about a loophole in the computer system that the techs were working on. Iz was disgusted; all she'd heard was a couple of guards talking about the food here on earth.

"But it worked didn't it? We should start spying more on these guys." Jason, trying to get us back on track. I agreed, but there was something bugging me.

"Guys, how are we going to keep track of the info we gather, and how are we not going to get caught sharing it? It's not like we can just pass notes in class…"

"Well, for where we share, why don't we go to the basements of some of the abandoned buildings? A bunch of them are connected, so we won't run out of space." said Cynthia.

"Why would we run out of space? There's just the five of us." questioned Isabella.

"Cynthia is insinuating that we expand." I thought about what she said, and said, "She _is _right. If we want to collect a decent amount of usable information, we're gonna need more than ten ears. I'll start looking through our former classmates for recruits."

* * *

A few weeks later I was waiting outside the shuttle station for Jackie. She was the same age as I was, but she'd been a year ahead of me in school. I'd been watching her for a week now; I was convinced she'd help the Resistance. I smirked as I thought of that name. I hadn't given our "movement" a name, but a bunch of the 7th graders that joined had started calling it that. It was strange how much our little eavesdropping group had grown, and how much it had collected. We now knew a lot of the fleet movements of HolyNightmareCo. Of course, Lee and I were the only ones who knew exactly how big the company was. They had an enormous empire, it scared even us. We had decided to keep their size somewhat of a secret, who knows how our friends would panic when they found exactly how big they were. I remembered that conversation when Thomas had found a map of the known universe…

_This is disturbing. I leaned back in my chair as Thomas pointed out the planets that Nightmare had conquered. Lee sat on the corner of the desk that had been set up in back room of a basement. They must've been building this for a century, at least. It was amazing we had escaped colonization as long as we had. We were smack dab in the left wing of the empire. _

"_The only reason we'd escaped for so long is that no one knew we were here. There's nothing around us for light-years and light-years. They thought this solar system was just a bunch of rocks drifting in space." Thank goodness for Thomas. _

_I turned to Lee. "We should keep this quiet. Nightmare is overwhelming as it is without this." _

_"I agree."_

I shook myself out of my memory as I saw Jackie head toward a transport. I smiled, she was alone, that would make this easier. She sat down, and I slid through the doors just before they closed.

"Wow Casey, I haven't seen you around since those bastards came. You look different, like you haven't been sleeping."

She looked nearly the same. "Who has? But enough with the small talk, how do you really feel about the monsters? You certainly have been defying them when they're not looking." I had nearly laughed at seeing her stick her middle finger to the sky at some of the officers behind their backs.

"You saw that, huh? Yeah, my rebellious streak is gonna get me into trouble one of these days."

"Then why don't you put it to good use." I quickly explained what we were doing. "Are you in?" This was the nerve-wracking part, waiting for her to respond. She shook her head and smiled before speaking.

"I never thought I'd hear those words come out of your mouth. You, doing something illegal? I'm totally in, just to see what you guys are doing." I faltered. Was she kidding? "No seriously Casey, I really am going to help. I'm no snitch." Ah, there it was. Jackie had a tell, but it was the opposite of most of them. When Jackie was telling the truth, her pupils dilated slightly. I smiled and leaned back in the seat. I pressed the stop button on the door and led her to one of the basement corridors. We walked in silence for a while, and I opened a door to one of the places where we gathered to exchange intelligence.

"Welcome to the Resistance."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter the Sixth

I looked at my watch; it was almost time for the first report of the newest recruits. I reached into the pocket of my jacket, around my Robin Hood, to find the secret pocket in which I kept the Little Brown Book. It held one copy of all the information we'd gathered over the past few months. I had one copy, Lee had another somewhere in her house, even I didn't know where. She didn't know where I kept my copy, nor did anyone else. I flipped through the pages of the little notebook, smiling at how many pages there were. I looked out the window at all the heads of spy departments. We had grown so much I'd needed to make little bosses that the spies reported to, who talked to me once a week. They destroyed their notes (by furnace) as soon as I had it down in the Book. Even if it Nightmare had either copy of the book, it would take months to even begin to translate. Not only was it in English (which Nightmare's soldiers still hadn't learned) but it was also in the Code of the Dancing Men. Call us Sherlock nerds, but hardly anyone knew it.

My head jerked up as a knock on the door yanked me out of thinking. The head spies along with Lee filed in and sat in their usual places. All of them had considerable amount information, a lot of information about fleet movements and soldier morale. It was quickly over and Lee and I began to talk about the importance of the information gathered.

"This Kirby person really has Nightmare's monsters shaking in their shoes." Lee said after the door closed.

"It's nice to know they're afraid of something." We giggled, the thought of something we feared so much being afraid of one person was, to say the least, encouraging. We had barely stopped chuckling when Thomas came in.

"I don't know what you two are laughing about, but I have news that might make you smile. I was sifting through some of the computer files (all in secret of course) when I found this." He took a big breath and finally said, "There is a resistance out there!" Lee and I gaped.

"After all these months…" This was stunning. Thomas prattered on.

"They're called the Galactic Soldier Army. Several years ago they suffered a great defeat at the hands of Nightmare's army. Most of them have gone into hiding, and supposedly one of them is training Kirby. They're scattered throughout the galaxy, but since the war is over Nightmare can't strike at the ones he knows exist."

"Wait, wait hold it. How can the war be over? Hopefully they're just regrouping."

"With who? They nearly were wiped out." Even with this, we all were ecstatic. Iz and Cynthia burst in, wondering what made Thomas interrupt us so excitedly. We quickly explained what he said.

"This is wonderful. We won't have to fight by ourselves anymore." Iz was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. I thought for a moment on her words.

"Maybe not forever, but we will still have to work on our own for a while yet. It sounds like they're not strong enough to bust us out of this straight away, so we'll have to help them stay safe. And that means we can't try to contact them."

"What!?" Everyone in the room stared at me in amazement. "Whad'ya mean we can't contact them!"

"Nightmare could trace any signal we send out and trace it to their location, and back to ours. It's too risky. Do you think we should tell the others?"

"She's right. We should only try to contact them if we know they're in danger. But I do think we should tell the other members. This will certainly boost their spirits." Lee smiled at me, and I walked to the door to check and see if everyone was there. A shift had just ended so everyone should be checking in right about now.

"Listen everyone, I have great news. There is a large resistance out there, called the Galactic Soldier Army." I quickly explained why we shouldn't try sending messages, and after some shouting, everyone agreed. I took the computer genius to the side and spoke to him quietly. "Hey Thomas, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure. What do you need me to do?"

"Keep your eyes open for any sign that Nightmare knows where the GSA is. I want to be able to warn them if they get caught."

"I can totally do that."

"Thanks Thomas." I smiled at him as I walked back to my "office". It was strange to have one. I suppose that it created the impression that I actually knew what I was doing and was in charge. Not that I needed anything to make me seem any more important, if the recruits' actions indicated anything. I smiled at the memory. Someone had managed to get all their cousins to work for us, and earlier I had overheard them whispering nervously to each other in a corner. They actually were talking about me as if I was the town hero or something. Riduculous. I looked at my watch; it was nearly time for my shift.

* * *

A few weeks passed uneventfully. Those cousins were bursting with pride; they'd overheard some plans for new demonbeasts. I smiled as I walked into the basement complex. I had a few cameras installed in the corners near the entrances so we could see Nightmares forces coming if we got caught. When I walked in the door Lee caught my eye and motioned for me to come to room I had.

"Lee, what's up?"

"There's been a change in chatter. Something has stirred the company into a half-panic. Not that anything that big can really panic but, whatever it is has got a lot of the officers crazed. A lot of-"

"Lee, what are you talking about? What's got 'em like this?"

"We don't know. Most of them are talking about "this" being a problem with their plan."

"What plan?" Thomas came in just then closing the door behind him.

"I don't know what plan they've got, but this might actually help them get the GSA unless we do something. 4 days ago they captured a ship near the Draldon system-"

"Spit it out Thomas!" I was getting irritated by not knowing what the hell they were talking about.

"They've captured a member of the GSA!"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter the Seventh

"What! Who?" I was stunned. How could they have captured someone from the GSA?

"He apparently was fighting on a distressed planet when some bastard turned him in." Thomas gritted his teeth at the thought of it.

"First things first, what are we going to about this? It's not like we can just leave him there." Lee said.

"Where is he being kept? We might be able to sneak him out before the patrols get too frequent." Thomas spread a map out on my desk of the complex. They'd stuck him in an "interrogation room" on the south side.

"Don't they have the grunts patrol there on Thursdays?" The "grunts" were these stupid pig-like beasts that patrolled sometimes. They're brains were too small to hold any useful information and all the girls hated them. They were fast buggers, and would chase any skirt that came within sight.

"There's an old subway passage here, isn't there? Where does that lead?"I tapped the old blueprint.

"Yeah, let me find that diagram… you were right, but it's a shipping track, started only just before the invasion. Some of it's still connected to the plants the cars serviced."

"Are they in the basement system?" A plan was forming in my head.

"There's an old hotel that is."

"Casey, what are you planning?" Lee asked me. She knew these questions weren't random drabble.

"Go get Andrea, give her some chocolate and then ask her to come in here. She won't like what I'm planning."

* * *

"You're crazy. I'll go along with it, but I want to make sure they stay as far away from my legs as possible. No way I'm letting those hooves up my skirt."

Good old Andy, she's always up for an adventure. After some discussion, the plan was set. Fortunately for Andrea, Jason and his friends had gotten very good with their fists, so they could protect her. Jane would be on site in case they'd tortured him. She was probably the best of us with medical skills. We were going very low tech, with simple walkie-talkies, to be used only if something went wrong.

"We'll have to wait till next Thursday at the least to try. I hate to leave him in the hands of those monsters for a week, but we have no other choice." Iz had sympathized with the poor guy as soon as she heard. Nearly everyone in the basement complex had heard about the operation and were chatting excitedly about it, while weighing worst case scenarios. All were bustling about as they tried to get ready for the mission, but there were still a few more things to consider. What if we didn't get to him in time? What if they managed to break him or worse, flip him? I could only hope that he could last a week. Who was I kidding? The Star Warriors were strong, he'd be fine. Sort of, he could be killed. Hopefully, we'd get there. But I needed to to speak with Teddy about a little task I wanted him to do…

* * *

"Andy, are you in position?"

"Here. I can smell the grunts from here."

"Jason?"

"All set Casey. Anything happens and we'll be right there."

"Neal, be keep your ears open."

"Will do Casey."

"Ricky?"

"Here with the cart, ready and waiting. Johnny's gonna wet his pants from the dark though. (NO I'M NOT!)"

"Let's go." It was Thursday, and the mission had begun. Andrea would be walking down the hallway towards the grunts. They would chase after her, and Neal would slip in and grab the soldier. Once Andrea had lost the guards in the maze of corridors, she, Jason and his friends would join Neal and the captured man to hallway H-425. By this time Ricky and his brother would have cut through a weak point in the ceiling of the subway tunnel for an escape. I was sitting on the loading dock of the old hotel, waiting for them all to come around the corner. What if something had gone wrong? The minutes ticked by, feeling much longer then they were. Then, clickety clickety clickety clickety…. That wasn't Nightmare's troops. They were loud, but clickety wasn't their style. I squinted into the dark, and there they were. The clicking sound was an old cart they were pushing along the tracks.

"Sorry we're late. I found him unconscious, so it took me longer to get to the hatch. You wouldn't believe how heavy he is." Neal still had his sense of humor, even when he was as tense as all hell. Jane ran out with some of the other boys to help get the soldier back to base. He had been tortured; there were cuts and burns all over him. His skin was nearly a green-blue, scaly in some places. His face was still covered by a helmet, one that looked like a knight helmet of old. It was very thin, a near maroon color. He was really out cold. Jane pulled him into the impromptu hospital room we'd set up, and shooed us all out.

"He's never gonna get any better with you all gawking at him! Out, out!" Not that I could really blame them, we all were still curious, even after all these months with the alien rulers. Jane told me she'd get me immediately if it looked like he was going to wake up. I talked over the mission with the others as soon as he'd been settled in.

"Did everything go smoothly?"

"Yeah, there was a bit of a scare when he wouldn't wake up, but I bet he was just drugged." Ricky concurred with Neal's statement.

"You should have seen us try to lower him through the exit. We nearly dropped him!" Ricky chuckled. I smiled at them all.

"Good work, all of you, a job well done. Go home; you deserve a good night's sleep." Lee also voiced her praise to them, just as Iz and Cynthia came in.

"That was a risky move Casey." Cyth shook her head at me.

"Well I couldn't leave him there. Don't you try and censure me, Cyth. What about all that spying you did right outside the planning room of the commanders?! Don't tell me that wasn't risky." She was about to reply when I said "Never mind that, time to speak to the troops." I walked outside and quickly called for a round of applause for everyone. I chatted with Thomas amiably for a while before going back to my office to look over some intelligence. I had not been in there long when Jane came in.

"He'll wake soon." I followed her to the room and was about to enter when I noticed her hanging back. I raised my eyebrows in a questioning look.

"I figured you'd want to talk to him alone."

"You know me too well." I smiled at her and closed the door behind me.

* * *

He was much like I'd last seen him, but clean with bandages. He stirred and tried to sit up, nearly gasping at the lights.

"You're finally awake. No, no, don't try to sit up; you'll tear your stitches."

"What… Where am I?..." His voice was slightly gravely, to be expected from being in a hole in the ground for two weeks.

"With as of yet unknown friends. Now sleep, you need it."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter the Eighth

"No, really, where am I?" He tried to sit up and held his head; dizzy.

"Well, if you're going to be stubborn…" I smiled on the inside. This might be fun. "You're in the basement of an abandoned building. It's perfectly safe, Nightmare's guys aren't going to find you nor is the ceiling going to fall on your head. I'm Casey, one of the leaders of a small resistance here."

"Where exactly is here? I thought I was on a space station."

"Nah you're on planet Earth." I could just imagine his eyebrows going up in confusion. "Don't be surprised if you've never heard of it, even Nightmare didn't know we were here until a while ago."

"That would explain why your species is unfamiliar to me."

"Well we were never interplanetary. I suppose the GSA has lots of different species."

"How would you know that I belonged to the Army?" He had been rubbing his skull, but at my statement his head snapped toward me. I leaned back in my chair.

"By listening. How else would we know you were here. We've been listening at Nightmare's keyholes for months." I was lying, somewhat. Thomas had found him through hacking the mainframe, but I didn't want him to know too much about us. He was going to open his mouth to reply when I cut him off.

"Enough of this. Get some sleep."

I doubted those wounds would kill him, unless his species were complete weaklings. Which he obviously wasn't, considering those scars on his chest. Big muscles, small guy. He must've been only 4' 5''. Much like a lot of the guys here. A lot of them were small and inconspicuous but had hidden strengths. Much like the guy heading toward me now, Teddy. He was very tall and thin with big black glasses and was a mechanical genius. Which was why I needed him to do me a favor…

* * *

"So you guys are doing this all by yourselves?" He sounded impressed, oddly enough. His name was Zenkt, which suited him, I suppose.

"Yeah. There are a few adults, but it's mostly just us teenagers."It had been week since he came, and Lee and I were giving him a half-tour. We weren't showing him everything, for safety. I let my mind wander as I glanced at his bandages. Jane said she'd never seen anybody heal so fast, and with no scar tissue either.

"Come on, Casey wants you to see this." Lee smiled at Zenkt as she motioned for him to enter a room I'd been saving for last. I'd been hoping to see his reaction, but he never took that helmet off.

She opened the door for him as we entered the steel room where Teddy was working.

"What is this?..."

"Ow!" Bang, crash boom.

"How's it going Ted?" The old genius friend of mine wheeled out from under the hunk of metal.

"Fine. You all just surprised me."

"Teddy here has been working on a ship take you back home. The company threw this one onto the junk heap after it drifted into their space. You've got oil on your glasses, Teddy." The boy took his glasses off and looked at the gunk on the lenses.

"Jump drive fluid actually."

"Why are you doing this for me?" asked Zenkt softly after we'd left Teddy to his tools.

"You've got to get home somehow." Lee walked with me to my "office". After she closed the door, I noticed the look on her face.

"You're worried about something."

"Do you trust him?" She folded her arms at me as she asked.

"Yes, I trust him. Why do you ask?"

"You constantly are testing him, very subtly. Why?" I ran my fingers my hair and thought about my answer for a moment.

"I'm thinking about giving him some of the information we've gathered, and I want to make sure it's actually going to the GSA."

Her response decided the matter.

* * *

Teddy finished the ship, with Zenkt's help, a couple of weeks later. We took the ship out to an old parking tower to launch; Thomas had found a small hole in the radar coverage that only appeared on alternate Tuesdays. Right before he took off, I handed him a small packet of paper.

"What's this?"

"Known weak points, fleet movements for the next six months and a microdot map of the empire. Use a magnifying glass. And, if you ever meet Kirby, give him the last four pages. Good luck."

"You should take off now Zenkt. The opening will close soon." Thomas, being practical.

"Thanks." He clapped his hand to my shoulder in parting and got into his ship. We all watched as the silver and green pod rose into the sky and disappeared.

"See you back at the base Casey." Everyone began to leave, and I was all alone on the rooftop.

"Good luck. To all of us." I smiled at the now periwinkle sky, then turned to follow my friends.

* * *

HOORAY! Thanks to the people who fav'ed my story and subscribed! You people are AWESOME!

Also, thanks to the real Teddy for allowing me to use his awesomeness. Though, in real life he's a physics genius.


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